Create new user account to "refresh" installation?

  • Thread starter Thread starter joel
  • Start date Start date
J

joel

Forgive me if this is a silly question. In WinXP, things would tend to get
messed up over time and the solution was to reinstall Windows to start over.
I was just thinking it would be nice to not have to do a total reinstall.
Could user accounts serve that purpose? In other words, if things got messed
up you would just delete that user account, create a new user account and be
back to a clean slate. Does that sound reasonable or are programs / drivers
installed across user accounts and that idea wouldn't work? Thanks!
 
First reaction: what about all of that user data? Does it get deleted
or become unavailable were the user account disabled?
 
Well, I was assuming that user data would be deleted when you delete the
user account and therefore you would back up all user data first just like
you would back up the data before reinstalling Windows.

I was just wondering if enough things get deleted with the user account so
that if I was having software glitches that deleting the user account would
get rid of the problems and I could "start over" with a new user account.

in message
 
joel said:
Well, I was assuming that user data would be deleted when you delete the
user account and therefore you would back up all user data first just like
you would back up the data before reinstalling Windows.

I was just wondering if enough things get deleted with the user account so
that if I was having software glitches that deleting the user account
would get rid of the problems and I could "start over" with a new user
account.

in message
Click to expand...

Only if the problems were just with that user.
K
 
Okay, so in other words, I guess it depends on if the software / issue is
confined to a user account or global across user accounts. Am I right in
thinking that most software gets installed globally? Or is it possible when
you are installing most software to choose to confine it to one user account
only? And if you can confine the installation, is that capability determined
by the OS or the application itself? (Sorry I don't have a Vista test
machine to try this on...)

"kreed" wrote in message
 
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